Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature

Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature PDF Author: Liu Jianmei
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190493402
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This is a powerful account of how the ruin and resurrection of Zhuangzi in modern China's literary history correspond to the rise and fall of modern Chinese individuality. Liu Jianmei highlights two central philosophical themes of Zhuangzi: the absolute spiritual freedom as presented in the chapter of "Free and Easy Wandering" and the rejection of absolute and fixed views on right and wrong as seen in the chapter of "On the Equality of Things." She argues the twentieth century reinterpretation and appropriation of these two important philosophical themes best testify to the dilemma and inner-struggle of modern Chinese intellectuals. In the cultural environment in which Chinese writers and scholars were working, the pursuit of individual freedom as well as the more tolerant and multifaceted cultural mentality has constantly been downplayed, suppressed, or criticized. By addressing a large number of modern Chinese writers, including Guo Moruo, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang, Fei Ming, Liu Xiaofeng, Wang Zengqi, Han Shaogong, Ah Cheng, Yan Lianke, and Gao Xingjian, the author provides an insightful and engaging study of how they have embraced, rejected, and returned to ancient thought and how the spirit of Zhuangzi has illuminated their writing and thinking through the turbulent eras of modern China. This book not only explores modern Chinese writers' complicated relationship with "tradition," but also sheds light on if the freedom of independence, non-participation, and roaming and the more encompassing cultural space inspired by Zhuangzi's spirit were allowed to exist in the modern Chinese literary context. Involving the interplay between philosophy, literature, and history, Liu delineates a neglected literary tradition influenced by Zhuangzi and Daoism and traces its struggles to survive in modern and contemporary Chinese culture.

Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature

Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature PDF Author: Jianmei Liu
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190238151
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
This is a powerful account of how the ruin and resurrection of Zhuangzi in modern China's literary history correspond to the rise and fall of modern Chinese individuality. The book highlights two central philosophical themes of Zhuangzi: the absolute spiritual freedom and the rejection of absolute and fixed views on right and wrong. It argues that the twentieth-century reinterpretation and appropriation of these two important philosophical themes best testify to the dilemma and inner struggle of modern Chinese intellectuals.

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures PDF Author: Carlos Rojas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190628146
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 920

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Book Description
With over forty original essays, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures offers an in-depth engagement with the current analytical methodologies and critical practices that are shaping the field in the twenty-first century. Divided into three sections--Structure, Taxonomy, and Methodology--the volume carefully moves across approaches, genres, and forms to address a rich range topics that include popular culture in Late Qing China, Zhang Guangyu's Journey to the West in Cartoons, writings of Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan, the Chinese Anglophone Novel, and depictions of HIV/AIDS in Chu T'ien-wen's Notes of a Desolate Man.

From May Fourth to June Fourth

From May Fourth to June Fourth PDF Author: Ellen Widmer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674045165
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 459

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Book Description
What do the Chinese literature and film inspired by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) have in common with the Chinese literature and film of the May Fourth movement (1918-1930)? This new book demonstrates that these two periods of the highest literary and cinematic creativity in twentieth-century China share several aims: to liberate these narrative arts from previous aesthetic orthodoxies, to draw on foreign sources for inspiration, and to free individuals from social conformity. Although these consistencies seem readily apparent, with a sharper focus the distinguished contributors to this volume reveal that in many ways discontinuity, not continuity, prevails. Their analysis illuminates the powerful meeting place of language, imagery, and narrative with politics, history, and ideology in twentieth-century China. Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, from formal analysis to feminist criticism, from deconstruction to cultural critique, the authors demonstrate that the scholarship of modern Chinese literature and film has become integral to contemporary critical discourse. They respond to Eurocentric theories, but their ultimate concern is literature and film in China's unique historical context. The volume illustrates three general issues preoccupying this century's scholars: the conflict of the rural search for roots and the native soil movement versus the new strains of urban exoticism; the diacritics of voice, narrative mode, and intertextuality; and the reintroduction of issues surrounding gender and subjectivity. Table of Contents: Preface Acknowledgments Introduction David Der-wei Wang part:1 Country and City 1. Visitation of the Past in Han Shaogong's Post-1985 Fiction Joseph S. M. Lau 2. Past, Present, and Future in Mo Yan's Fiction of the 1980s Michael S. Duke 3. Shen Congwen's Legacy in Chinese Literature of the 1980s Jeffrey C. Kinkley 4. Imaginary Nostalgia: Shen Congwen, Song Zelai, Mo Yan, and Li Yongping David Der-wei Wang 5. Urban Exoticism in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Heinrich Fruehauf part: 2 Subjectivity and Gender 6. Text, Intertext, and the Representation of the Writing Self in Lu Yun, Dafu,and Wang Meng Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker 7. Invention and Intervention: The Making of a Female Tradition in Modern Chinese Literature Lydia H. Liu 8. Living in Sin: From May Fourth via the Antirightist Movement to the Present Margaret H. Decker part: 3 Narrative Voice and Cinematic Vision 9. Lu Xun's Facetious Muse: The Creative Imperative in Modern Chinese Fiction Marston Anderson 10. Lives in Profile: On the Authorial Voice in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Theodore Huters 11. Melodramatic Representation and the "May Fourth" Tradition of Chinese Cinema Paul G. Pickowicz 12. Male Narcissism and National Culture: Subjectivity in Chen Kaige's King of the Children Rey Chow Afterword: Reflections on Change and Continuity in Modern Chinese Fiction Leo Ou-fan Lee Notes Contributors From May Fourth to June Fourth will he warmly welcomed. It should be of great interest to all concerned with literary developments in the contemporary world on the one hand, and on the other with the enigmas surrounding China's alternating attempts to develop and to destroy herself as a civilization. --Cyril Birch, University of California, Berkeley

The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature

The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature PDF Author: Kirk A. Denton
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804731287
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Centered around the figures of Hu Feng, a leftist literary theorist who promoted "subjectivism," and his disciple Lu Ling, known for his psychological fiction, this study explores theoretical and fictional responses to the problematic of self at the heart of the experience of modernity in 20th-century China.

Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi PDF Author: Zhuangzi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231129599
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Only by understanding Dao (the Way of Nature) and dwelling in its unity can humankind achieve true happiness and freedom, in both life and death. This is the central tenet of the philosophy espoused by Zhuangzi (369?-286? BCE) in the book that bears his name. A leading philosopher of the Daoist strain, Zhuangzi used parable and anecdote, allegory and paradox, to set forth the early ideas of what was to become the Daoist school. Witty and imaginative, enriched by brilliant imagery, and making sportive use of both mythological and historical personages (including even Confucius), this is a timeless classic.

THE WORLD OF MASTER ZHUANG

THE WORLD OF MASTER ZHUANG PDF Author: CHEN Guying
Publisher: American Academic Press
ISBN: 1631816802
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The World of Master Zhuang is translated from Zhuangzi annotated and put into modern Chinese by Chen Guying. It is a fascinating collection of essays and tales composed by Zhou Zhuang of China’s Warring States Period and his followers. It is classified as literary, rich in philosophical ideas and taken as one of the three major classics of Daoism (the other two are Laozi and Liezi). This is why virtually all literate Chinese know the book, and its readers adopt the rich supply of idioms in their daily communication and always learn from it something helpful, whether it is wisdom, knowledge, insight, consonance, sympathies, comfort, relief, reconciliation or compromise. All those who have attempted a translation either intralingually or interlingually share similarities in most cases but differ sometimes, due to occasional illegibility of the original and divergence in interpretation. For this reason, the translators tried to comprehend the original against its historiocultural background, trace the missing information from its context guided by linguistic theories, correct errors adopting expository strategies, make the text coherent by means of necessary cohesive devices and express in English as a native speaker, so that it may be appropriately understood by as many readers as possible.

Zhuangzi - Chuang Tzu (illustrated)

Zhuangzi - Chuang Tzu (illustrated) PDF Author: Zhuang Zi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
The Chuang Tsu is one of the most important books in Chinese literature and philosophy. It stands with Confucius (who often appear as a character in its stories).James Legge's translation is perhaps the most sophisticated and exacting one in existence. It carries as much as possible of the subtlety and detail in the original masterwork. Essentially, it is a commentary and extension of the Dao de Jing/Tao Te Ching, in the same way that Mencius' Analects are an exploration of Confucius' thought. Written in around 300BCE during the Warring States period, it is a collection of anecdotes, fables, and stories that re as silly and funny as they are deep and thought provoking.Illustrated with historical drawings and paintings of Zhuangzi's adventures with Confucius, and illustrating tales in the book.

Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness

Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness PDF Author: David Chai
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438472676
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Explores the cosmological and metaphysical thought in the Zhuangzi from the perspective of nothingness. Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness offers a radical rereading of the Daoist classic Zhuangzi by bringing to light the role of nothingness in grounding the cosmological and metaphysical aspects of its thought. Through a careful analysis of the text and its appended commentaries, David Chai reveals not only how nothingness physically enriches the myriad things of the world, but also why the Zhuangzi prefers nothingness over being as a means to expound the authentic way of Dao. Chai weaves together Dao, nothingness, and being in order to reassess the nature and significance of Daoist philosophy, both within its own historical milieu and for modern readers interested in applying the principles of Daoism to their own lived experiences. Chai concludes that nothingness is neither a nihilistic force nor an existential threat; instead, it is a vital component of Dao’s creative power and the life-praxis of the sage. “Chai provides an elaborate philosophical meontological interpretation of the ontology/cosmology found in the Zhuangzi and the implications for existential practice. It’s a close, careful, but in many respects quite original reading of the classic that contributes significantly to the field of philosophical Daoist studies.” — Geir Sigurðsson, author of Confucian Propriety and Ritual Learning: A Philosophical Interpretation

A History of Modern Chinese Fiction

A History of Modern Chinese Fiction PDF Author: Chih-tsing Hsia
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253334770
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 782

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Book Description
Regarded as a pioneering classic study of 20th-century Chinese fiction, this volume covers some 60 years, from the Literary Revolution of 1917 through the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76.'

The Resurrected Skeleton

The Resurrected Skeleton PDF Author: Wilt L. Idema
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231536518
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The early Chinese text Master Zhuang (Zhuangzi) is well known for its relativistic philosophy and colorful anecdotes. In the work, Zhuang Zhou ca. 300 B.C.E.) dreams that he is a butterfly and wonders, upon awaking, if he in fact dreamed that he was a butterfly or if the butterfly is now dreaming that it is Zhuang Zhou. The text also recounts Master Zhuang's encounter with a skull, which praises the pleasures of death over the toil of living. This anecdote became popular with Chinese poets of the second and third century C.E. and found renewed significance with the founders of Quanzhen Daoism in the twelfth century. The Quanzhen masters transformed the skull into a skeleton and treated the object as a metonym for death and a symbol of the refusal of enlightenment. Later preachers made further revisions, adding Master Zhuang's resurrection of the skeleton, a series of accusations made by the skeleton against the philosopher, and the enlightenment of the magistrate who judges their case. The legend of the skeleton was widely popular throughout the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and the fiction writer Lu Xun (1881–1936) reimagined it in the modern era. The first book in English to trace the development of the legend and its relationship to centuries of change in Chinese philosophy and culture, The Resurrected Skeleton translates and contextualizes the story's major adaptations and draws parallels with the Muslim legend of Jesus's encounter with a skull and the European tradition of the Dance of Death. Translated works include versions of the legend in the form of popular ballads and plays, together with Lu Xun's short story of the 1930s, underlining the continuity between traditional and modern Chinese culture.